Watching with Waters
by TheGothicPrincess666
Summary: A very short story about what happened after TFIOS ended, including lots of shipping of both Augustus/Hazel and Isaac/Hazel.


I watched as the door swung shut in his face.

His fists connected with the plastic, and slowly unfurled as he pressed his forehead and palms against it. She was in there, dying, and he couldn't get to her. I could, though. I could go in there, and watch as they struggled to save her, but I couldn't leave Isaac alone out here, even if he didn't know I was there with him. After a few minutes, he felt his way across the room and sank into a hard plastic chair, head dipping into his hands as he started to cry. I hovered, wanting so much to wrap my arms around him, to comfort him, but that hadn't been a possibility for the last six years. I just had to sit back and watch as my best friend suffered, as Hazel Grace lay in the next room, clinging to life by the last threads of her tremendous will.

I was right. As a ghost, I had sat with her as she read my last letter, laid with her countless times, just whispering, over and over again; 'Okay'. I had watched as she and Isaac grew closer to each other in their grief, reminisced about me, cried, visited my grave.

I wanted to punch him, the first time he kissed her. I tried. With everything thing I had, I tried, but it was no use. I saw how, after the kiss, they both left, went home and cried, because they felt like they had betrayed me, even though it had been a year, and I didn't want to punch him any more. I wanted her to be happy. I wanted him to make her happy. I knew what a privilege it was to be loved by Hazel Grace Lancaster, and there was no greater gift I wanted for him. At first, they were uncomfortable about it, unsure of whether it was right. Eventually, though, they, and everyone around them, realised that there was no one better suited to either of them. No one had lived through what they had.

On their wedding day, they left an empty seat on the front row for me, but I didn't sit in it. I stood behind Isaac, where his best man should be, where I should have been. From my position, I could see as Hazel Grace burst into tears as she said 'I do'. I couldn't tell if it was sadness or happiness, but I think it was probably a little of both. They kept pictures of me on their living room wall, and visited my grave every birthday and holiday, and sometimes just because they missed me. It was heart-warming, and heart-breaking at the same time.

Back in the hospital waiting room, Frannie and Michael Lancaster burst through the corridor doors, and ran to Isaac. They hugged him and they all cried, and I watched jealously, because they could do the thing I wanted to do more than anything. I couldn't watch it any more.

I drifted into the room, unnoticed. I stood at the end of the bed and looked down at her. She was just as beautiful as the day I met her, even though her skin was pale and slick and there were dark rings around her eyes. She was the most beautiful thing in my life, and in my death, and I refused to deny myself that beauty. If she died now, she would be with me again, and for a brief second, I wanted that, but then I thought of the man in the waiting room, the man whose wife, star-crossed love of my life though she may be, was about to die.

"Hang on Hazel Grace. Don't let go. He needs you."

Her face twitched, and for a moment I hoped that she could hear me, but then she went limp again. I noticed now that the doctors had stopped. They were just standing there, looking helplessly at her, and I wanted to scream at them to do something. They couldn't let her die, they had to save her, because I didn't think Isaac would survive without either of us.

"Fight, Hazel Grace! Fight or so help me!"

The doctors were filing out of the room, and Isaac, Frannie and Michael were filing in, their eyes blood-shot and swollen. Frannie immediately threw herself on her daughters prone body, clutching at her. I half expected her to beg, to will Hazel to wake up, to not leave them all, but she just sobbed, and when Michael lay a hand on her back, she turned to sob into him instead. He wrapped her in his arms, and together they stood, in a bubble of grief. Isaac, though, was alone. He went to Hazel's side, and picked up her hand in his. Sitting on the side of her bed, he whispered to her, hardly loud enough for anyone to hear,

"Let go, Hazel Grace. You can let go." His voice cracked towards the end, and he sobbed, just once, before carrying on, "I'm going to miss you, more than you could ever know, but living with pain is what we do. I don't know what's out there, beyond this life, but I hope you see him again. I love you, Hazel Grace, but I promise you, I'm going to be okay."

That was the moment that Hazel Grace Lancaster, after nine years of struggling with cancer, finally succumbed to it. The room was awash with noise, a quiet cacophony of bleeps and sobs, but I couldn't hear it, the lack of her presence was deafeningly silent. And then I heard it. The most beautiful sound in the word.

"Okay, Augustus Waters?"


End file.
